We were excited to get in to this fair because we believed the reviews that it was truly a fine art fair. It is not.
Although the show is well run and people really did their best to be helpful, the prevalence of booths filled with inexpensive craft items, especially in our row, hurt our ability to sell more expensive one-of-a-kind glass art.
Positives about the show? Helpful staff, very good entertainment on main stage [only once was the volume enough to interfere with conversations with potential customers], a beautiful setting, easy loading, and a great value on a cooperating hotel. The promotional campaign is very strong and brings lots of people, as do the main stage acts, which seem to attract the families and friends of the local performers. And no dogs are allowed in the park during the show, which seems to invite more attention to booths.
Negatives? If we were the only ones to have poor sales, I would assume it was our work and that we were a mismatch. We talked with lots of artists with similar price points, however, and only one was having a successful show. When we spoke with artists who had been there before [with one notable exception], their sales were down. We're not knocking crafters -- our neighbors could not have been nicer. We just think that if we had been in a row full of higher-priced items, we might have done better. People spent time in our booth looking at our work, but our sales were abysmal, which has not been as true at other shows. Another negative: the hours are unnecessarily long: Friday night 4-7:30, Saturday 9-7, and Sunday 9-4.
We did have a fierce storm on Friday night, and the staff and fire and police departments were attentive and helpful about closing the show down early. That didn't necessarily help sales, and the ground was damp all weekend, but there were crowds there nonetheless.
We can't help but wonder if this show is living on its past reputation. Apparently it once was a first-rate fine art show, but now they seem to be adding a fair number of craft booths.
Suggestion: If you choose to do this show, ask for a booth in the main upper section, above the sidewalk. That had the best array of fine art and heavy foot traffic.
Comments
I'm really glad you had a great show! I wasn't basing my comments on our sales alone, though .As I wrote above, we talked to many artists before we left.
Thanks. It was a learning experience for us and we met some great people. ;>)
Thank you for your review, Ellen. Yes, I seem to recall that Arts and Apples had a really wonderful reputation back in the day...too bad they seem to be going down hill and sorry that your sales weren't what you expected.